Due to the increasing difficulty of obtaining large sections of land in densely populated areas, golf courses are generally found some distance from population centers, and the cost of maintaining a full scale golf course has increased substantially. The popularity of the game of golf has thus led to the development of a number of factitious golf games and driving ranges in which a player can indulge certain aspects of the sport within a limited area. While such games provide amusement, players are not able to exercise the wide range of skills enjoyed in playing the game on an orthodox golf course.
Attempts have been made in the past to meet this need. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,455,806 shows a compact golf course on which the balls are not retrieved after being hit by the players, and the score is calculated by arbitrary rules rather than repeatedly hitting a single ball from the tee to the green of each particular hole. U.S. Pat. No. 2,894,749 describes an enclosed, compact golf game where the players hit balls on fairways formed within tunnels which run from the tee to the green. U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,980 describes a golf course having three spaced-apart greens disposed on a single fairway, and a ball-return system for returning the balls from the course to the tees without the necessity of the player retrieving the balls. U.S. Pat. No. 3,708,173 describes a golf game including a number of putting greens arranged about a central building, which permits a large number of participants to play simultaneously, but the game in terms of golf shots is a chipping game rather than a driving or putting exercise. U.S. Pat. No. 4,157,831 describes groupings of tees and greens clustered together and disposed about the compact golf course, with the golfer moving across intercepting and overlapping fairways between the respective greens and tees so that an 18-hole course may be contained in a restricted area.
While the above described patents offer advances in the art, it is still a desideratum to provide a compact golf course which enables an individual to play 9 or 18 holes of golf on separate tees and greens using woods, irons and putters in a traditional manner, but which does not subject a player to the risk of transiting intersecting fairways, or require artificial scoring or unnatural play.